KÄRNAN - Kings, Knights and the Common People the Everyday Use and Spatial Organization of the Medieval Castle with 3D Visualization
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KÄRNAN - Kings, Knights and the Common People The everyday use and spatial organization of the medieval castle with 3D visualization Sara Holmqvist Master Thesis in Historical Archaeology ARKM22 Spring 2014 Supervisor: Anders Ödman Supervisor: Nicolo Dell’Unto Department of archaeology and ancient history Lund University Abstract This master thesis is about Kärnan, which is a medieval tower that is situated in Helsingborg. Kärnan was built during the beginning of the 14th century and was part of Helsingborg’s castle that belonged to the Danish king. This thesis investigates how the tower was used and which people were living and running the castle and how the castle affected the surrounding landscape. Fief holders were running and living in the castles while the Danish court traveled around and stayed at different castles owned by the king. The medieval appearance of the interior is also discussed, and digital methods are used to test how the space have been furnished and used during the 14th century. An acquisition was performed with 3D laser scanner and image based 3D modeling was used, in order to create a digital replica of the building to use as a reference. The digital replica was merged with virtual furniture which was reconstructed using software computer-based visualization. Keywords: Kärnan, Medieval castles, Middle Ages, 3D laser scanner, Virtual reality, 3D Image based modeling Table of Contents 1. Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Aim and questions ......................................................................................................................... 2 1.2 The name Kärnan (the Core) ......................................................................................................... 3 2. Research history .................................................................................................................................. 4 2.1 Early documentation and renovation ........................................................................................... 4 2.2 Restoration 1893-1894 .................................................................................................................. 5 2.3 Excavations and interpretations in the 1930’s .............................................................................. 7 2.4 Dendrochronological dating .......................................................................................................... 8 2.5 Modern interpretation .................................................................................................................. 8 2.6 Previous digital work in Kärnan ..................................................................................................... 9 3. Material and method ........................................................................................................................ 10 3.1 Kärnan and other medieval castles ............................................................................................. 10 3.2 Digital methods ........................................................................................................................... 11 4. Theoretical perspective ..................................................................................................................... 17 4.1 Medieval castles and towers ....................................................................................................... 18 4.2 Interior and way of living ............................................................................................................. 18 4.3 A digital approach ........................................................................................................................ 20 5. Castles and society in medieval Denmark ......................................................................................... 22 5.1 Helsingborg and the medieval castle .......................................................................................... 23 5.2 Castles and medieval towers ....................................................................................................... 26 5.3 To live in a castle ......................................................................................................................... 28 5.4 Kärnan - the building ................................................................................................................... 35 5.5 Interior and Furniture .................................................................................................................. 42 6. The Reconstruction of the second floor ............................................................................................ 51 6.1 3D laser scanning of the second floor ......................................................................................... 52 6.2 Texture ........................................................................................................................................ 55 6.3 3D modeling ................................................................................................................................ 56 6.4 Result of reconstruction .............................................................................................................. 65 7. Discussion and conclusion ................................................................................................................. 68 7.1 The purpose Kärnan had to the area ........................................................................................... 68 7.2 The people who worked/inhabited Kärnan ................................................................................ 69 7.3 The medieval appearance of the living space ............................................................................. 70 8. Summary ............................................................................................................................................ 71 Acknowledgments ................................................................................................................................. 72 References ............................................................................................................................................. 73 1. Introduction Helsingborg is a city, with medieval origin, situated in the northwest coast of Scania, Sweden. The city is located by the narrowest part of sea and there is a clear view over to Helsingör, Denmark. In present day when you visit the center of Helsingborg there is a grand staircase which leads up a cliff to a medieval tower that is known as Kärnan. The medieval tower is placed upon what is called landborgen in Swedish, which means a geologically formed plateau. In combination with the stairs and Kärnan’s placement on the plateau, it’s impressive still today when you look up at the tower. Ever since I was younger I have tried to imagine how medieval people must have viewed it when Kärnan was part of the medieval castle with a ring-wall surrounding it and with no stairs that invite you up to visit. Kärnan was built during the beginning of the 14th century and is the only above-ground remnant that is left of the medieval castle. The castle was an important part of the Danish kingdom because of its location by the narrow part of the sea, and the high plateau which gave a good natural defense (Eriksson, Drake & Carelli 2007: 11, 91). Today the tower is open for the public but there is little information provided inside about how it may have looked during the medieval period. It’s understandable why there is little furniture and material in the tower: the stairs in the tower are twisted and narrow, which makes it difficult to move anything in and out of the tower. The entrance floor to the tower is not placed on the ground floor but instead on the first floor which has wooden stairs leading up to it. With this thesis I want to develop and test a digital workflow for the digital acquisition, which is used to visualize and analyze the second floor in the tower. Specifically this work aims to demonstrate the combination of “traditional” archaeological methods and digital data allows for a complete interpretation of the space in the past. During the Master’s programme (Archaeology – Theory and practice) I used image based modeling techniques to acquire and visualize the outer façade of the medieval tower. This result was achieved using low cost equipment, such as a digital camera for the acquisition and Agisoft PhotoScan for the data processing (Figure 1). With this thesis it’s my intention to continue developing this approach of merging different digital tools and methods in order to reach a deeper understanding of the impact that these technologies have on archaeological interpretations methods. 1 Figure 1. A screen capture of a 3D model of Kärnan. The model was mainly reconstructed with Image based modeling, however the stairs and the roof of the tower needed to be modeled from pictures (Holmqvist, Moulin & Roe, Group work in Master’s Programme: Archaeology – Theory and practice). 1.1 Aim and questions The aim of the thesis is to investigate how the medieval tower may have been used in a bigger perspective during the 14th century. With this thesis I want to study how the castle functioned and was used by its inhabitants. With the use of digital methods I want to visualize one floor of Kärnan, combining 3D laser scanner,